A Convention Visit, Revisited

Redartz: Good day, all! Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Indiana Comic Con, and posted a few details during comments on my post the same day. Doug graciously asked if I'd expound a bit on the day, and so here is an accounting in greater detail.

Some of you may recall an exchange of comments about two years ago, when Doug was planning to attend the Indiana Con and so was I. As things turned out, the convention's organizers failed to anticipate the crowds (that was their first big con here), and many potential attendees were turned away (Doug and I included). Following that con, there were numerous comments in the local media and social networks of less-than-praising content. So to 'balance the scales', as it were, I gave it another chance this year. Things worked out much better.

First of all, I made certain to order a ticket online in advance. This was a simple operation, and when I arrived at the Convention Center about 8:00 ( the show opened at 9), I entered and was able to claim my badge at the counter quickly and join the line to enter. At this point there were maybe 100 persons in line ahead of me, so not bad. Over the next 45 minutes I stood in line, and chatted with the other fans waiting (they had come from all over the general area, and spirits were pretty high). The line to enter grew, but even by 9 the line was reasonable in length. Upon starting time, they formed three lines at the entrance. So now I was only about 20 people from the head of the line!

I had planned to see George Perez first, assuming he would be a big draw. This became the only downside to the day; it turned out they issued tickets to 100 attendees to start his line, a fact of which I was unaware. So I was directed to stand in the 'no ticket' line, and ended up spending nearly two hours there (again visiting with other fans, a big side benefit to attending a con) before finally abandoning the attempt. Some of this delay was due, no doubt, to some of those ticket holders bringing literally stacks of books to be signed. One fellow actually brought a full shortbox and another large bag, amounting to several hundred books to be autographed (that brings up another potential post; convention etiquette). This time spent was by no means wasted, however; it was fun to meet other attendees and hear their stories. We also took turns holding each other's place in line allowing several of us to wander around a bit.

Once abandoning that waitng line, things went much better. I started off visiting Jim Shooter, and only waited a couple of minutes. He was a pleasure to talk with, and was very kind. He answered several questions I asked about the topic of the BAB post that day, posed for a photo and signed a book for me (my copy of Avengers 161- the Ant Man issue,prompting Jim to comment on George Perez' rendered ants). Finally I thanked him for the great stories he gave us, and moved on.

I then spoke with Marv Wolfman, also very pleasant, and with June Brigman (who spoke of the pleasure she finds working with Louise Simonson).  I next went over to Mark Waid's table, and after a short two minute wait, chatted him up a bit. In all these cases, the wait was negligible, and the artists/writers all free and willing to visit a bit.

Next up: walked over to Ron Wilson's table. Watched him working on an ink drawing for another fan, and soon inquired about a sketch. Ended up ordering a pencil sketch, presented for your approval!

He was very friendly, and grateful to his fans. I asked him if he got woozy drawing all those rocks on Ben Grimm; he smiled and said it eventually led him to drawing "He Man" instead...

I have always gotten a kick out of watching costumed fans and cosplayers, so I took a tour of the convention floor and admired the array. And there were many, and some great outfits. It was pleasing to see how many actual families were represented: both parents and childen all costumed, and having fun.

That family -friendly feeling was everywhere, the convention was roomy with plenty of maneuverability.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time, and seeing so many kids made me optimistic for the future of our hobby...

Last up was a trip to the dealer's booths. After all, can't hit a con without bagging a few goodies! There were many sellers there, with everything from tattoos to comics to toys and clothing. Being Sunday afternoon, quite a few comic dealers had the discount signs up (hint to any potential convention visitors; Sunday afternoon is a good time to find some bargains as they want to pack up as little stock as possible). I selected several books, all at half price.


My haul:

And that was about it for this day's fun. Overall a very positive experience, not crowded, plenty of room to look. Fans were everywhere, and in good spirits.The organizers obviously learned from the first year's troubles, the venue was much larger. The guest list was extensive and quite attractive to a Bronze Age fan such as I.  Convention volunteers were in great supply, if you needed help. Tickets were easy to get online, and pretty affordable. All considered: a day well spent, and one I plan to repeat next year. Maybe I'll see you there...

Convention Season!

Redartz: Spring is upon us, and the weather (theoretically, anyway) is warming. This is a sure sign that comic book conventions are going to be sprouting up like crocuses! Of course in recent years, cons have spread out throughout the year, and throughout the world. Big conventions, small conventions; some like Comic Con in San Diego are pop culture phenomenons in themselves. Others are local gatherings of comic book dealers and fans; buying and selling as they have since fandom began. 

The writer and his youngest son at Motor City Con

Today let's discuss comic conventions. Do you prefer a large, multi-media show, or a smaller, more intimate gathering? Do you go to buy, meet creators, see panels? Any cosplayers among us (one of these days I'll get up the nerve to go as Dr. Strange; my wife the quilter has already agreed to help). Have you any cool convention experiences to share, or are you still looking to attend your first one? 

And speaking of attending, this brings us to another question for you all. Upcoming at the end of April (specifically, April 29 - May ) in Indianapolis, Indiana is the Indiana Comic Con. This year they are featuring a pretty stellar group of Bronze Age comics pros, including: Neal Adams, Chris Claremont, Mike Golden, George Perez, Jim Shooter, Ron Wilson, Marv Wolfman and Bernie Wrightson.  This writer is planning to attend, probably on Sunday May 1. I mentioned it to Doug and Karen, thinking perhaps there might be others among us, located within a reasonable distance, who might be interested in attending also. They agreed, and also agreed that if this is the case, it might be fun to set up a little face-to-face meeting of said BAB attendees! Thus, I toss this question to you all, is anyone open/ interested/available for this? Any suggestions, requests or advice?

Face-Off: The Consumer Division, Plus Indiana Comic Con Update

Doug: Today's Face-Off is sort of a do-it-yourselfer in that you'll be the ones to provide the conversation pieces. We're looking for those products that have a major (MAJOR) competitor, and you're voicing of a true love for one over the other -- and never shall you use the other! Some examples follow:

UPDATE

 

Doug: Those of you who have been around over the past week will recall my consternation with the way large crowd numbers were handled last Saturday at the inaugural Indiana Comic Con. When I got home from Indianapolis, I penned a letter of concern -- not really complaint, as my partner insists I can sometimes be too diplomatic -- to the contact address found at the bottom of the Indy Con website. I received a reply yesterday morning, and I feel it's my duty as a complainer (er, concerner?) to share it with you. Here goes, me first:

I want to thank you for the wonderful guest list that your organizers/promoters put together for the Indy Con. I was very much looking forward to meeting several Bronze Age creators - it was refreshing to see a guest list with some of the "old guys" as opposed to current creators.

That being said, I arrived at 12:30 to the Convention Center after a drive from the Chicago south suburbs. The line was easily over 1000 people long, and ticket sales had already been cut off. That was incredibly frustrating, as it is hard to believe that demand was that grossly underestimated. After waiting for a short time and listening to the ushers make a few announcements, I turned around and went back home.

Hopefully if the Con is held again next year, it will be larger and better able to accommodate the fans. I would very much like to attend, as I know that Indy would have had a much nicer feel than WizardWorld Chicago. Your prices were incredibly fair, and parking is always so much more affordable in Indy than in the Chicago area. This had so much potential, but I fear that a lot of revenue was left in the concourse on Saturday afternoon.

Best wishes,

Doug Wadley

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the email and the feedback. Lots of attendees are angry that they weren't able to get in and sent very angry emails, not being able to see or reason past their personal frustration. So I greatly appreciate your calm and reasoned email. Thanks for that.

I’m very sorry that you were disappointed. Believe me, we were also disappointed in having to turn attendees away at the door. That brings us nothing but heartbreak.

The room could accommodate roughly 6,000-7,000 attendees. It simply wasn’t designed to accommodate Saturday’s roughly 15,000 attendee turnout. Unfortunately, there is no way to know how many people will show up the day-of to purchase tickets at the door. Lots of people cite Gen Con without reflecting that Gen Con has been around since the late 60s and has over four decades of attendance figures to plan with. This was the first Indiana Comic Con with no past attendance record to work with.

If you attended on Friday or Sunday, you would have seen a very organized and streamlined ticketing system because the attendance on those days was within the hall’s capacity and therefore within our ability to serve. We actually tried to obtain more space, but there were
other events going on as well—the convention center was unable to sell us additional space for 2014. We had to be creative and do the best we could with the space available to us.

Our space for 2015 is currently over 3x the size of this year’s space—and we are trying to get even more space than that. I hope you’ll return next year and watch the convention grow!

Thanks,

Stephen

Doug: Sounds good to me. Schedule permitting, I will definitely try to go to this con again next year. However, I'm doing a little head-scratching at one major issue -- the tickets were super-affordable at $20 apiece. Do you think that when they double the size of the show (obviously increasing their rental fees for the space) that tickets will remain the same price? Or do you think that the revenue they lost on Saturday, once realized, will make up for it? Interesting marketing call. We shall see.

 

Indiana Comic Con Report: TOTAL FAIL

Doug: Below is the original introduction to today's post, written on Friday evening, 3/14/2014.

Doug: Came. Saw. Conquered. Well, I don't know about that last part. Yesterday I made the 2 1/2 hour trek south to Indianapolis for my first Indiana Comic Con. Many thanks to Redartz for the tip several weeks ago, as despite my relatively close proximity to the Hoosier capital, I did not even know there was a major con in Indy. It worked out great family-wise, too, as I was able to meet the boys for lunch ahead of entering the Convention Center. My oldest is volunteering in media relations at the Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament at Banker's Life Fieldhouse this weekend, so was going to be in town anyway; as they'd both gotten out of school Friday for spring break, I asked the younger if he wanted to ride with his brother to Indy and meet me to go to the con. He obliged, so we had a nice father-son day and then I brought him home with me for the week.

Doug (3/15/2014): Well, all that being said, here's the reality -- the organizers, promoters, whoever, of the Indiana Comic Con GROSSLY underestimated the demand for their product. Posting a rant on Twitter after I got home, I was informed by follower TropicalHippie that yes, this is the first year for the Indy Con. Man, had to be. Tickets were so affordable compared to WizardWorld Chicago, which I've lamented in the past. For my son and I to go, our admission was going to be a combined $40 ($20 apiece) and we only paid $5 to park. I was planning on some serious bang for that buck. Here's the chain of events: I arrived to an Arby's that was about halfway between Banker's Life Fieldhouse and the Convention Center. I met the boys and a friend at 11:30 and we stayed until around 12:15. My younger son and I moved the car closer to the Convention Center and entered the building around 12:30; the Con had opened for the day at 10:00 am. We entered the main entrance, to be greeted by four lines of people standing as if in a queue. Two lines faced us, two lines faced away from us. Now, Indy was pretty busy this weekend, what with the Big Ten tourney, a local St. Patrick's Day 5K, and who knows what else. However, spying many superhero t-shirts and a little cosplay in those lines made it quickly clear that this was not good.

Doug: So, mystified by what we saw, we began to walk along the side wall, hoping for a) the end of the line, and b) some information on what the heck was going on. It didn't take long before an usher (who looked amazingly like Richard Kiel, sans dental work - dude was every bit of 7-feet tall) shouted out town crier-style that the convention halls (the Con was only in halls D and E, so you know there was room not used) were full and had to be shut down. Not only were ticket sales cut off, but will-call tickets were not even being honored. Imagine this -- a line probably over 1/2 block long, but times four. If there were 1000 people in that line, there easily could have been 1500. I am not exaggerating. And think about this, too -- at 12:30, ticket sales were cut off. The con was going to close at 6:00 pm. There is no way that all of those in line would get into the two exhibition halls. So for every person who was left out, that was $20 in revenue that would be unrealized. Potentially, if most of those people did what we did and left, that's over $20K left on the concourse.

Doug: So I didn't get to meet Steve Englehart, or Keith Pollard, Rich Buckler, George Perez, or Bob Layton. I didn't get to peruse any 4 for $20 trade paperback boxes. Nothing. I did text my friend, former DC artist Don Kramer, who was on the guest list. He said that he wasn't aware of what was going on outside the exhibition halls, but that inside it was super-crowded and very difficult to move -- it was actually kind of a pain, he said. And, as fate would have it, he was seated two chairs down from Perez. Doh!

Doug: I'm sorry I don't have better news to report today. I really hoped to have some cool photos to show. Instead, all you get is the one below taken by my son when we got back home. It shows me lamenting the lack of Englehart's and Buckler's signatures on a two-page spread of the Marvel Chronicle. My loss, but yours, too. But so it isn't a total loss of a day, make the leap to this post from a few years ago celebrating meeting our favorite comic book creators. Thanks!